Predation risk

Predation is one of the strongest evolutionary forces in the animal kingdom. The need to catch food influences the ecology, morphology, and behavior of predators and prey alike. As a consequence, predation risk has not only a stark effect on the single individual but further shapes food webs and whole ecosystems. Predator-prey interactions can be understood as an arms race: Over evolutionary time spans, predators developed a multitude of hunting strategies to catch prey, which in turn developed better and more sophisticated antipredator strategies. Such arms races are indeed the cause of many extraordinary color patterns and morphological features as well as fascinating behaviors observed in nature. In the following we will elucidate these diverse adaptions of predators and prey, followed by a short overview on the evolutionary consequences of predation risk on shaping complex social organizations of predators and prey at the same time